I'm not obsessed with bugs, but I do create some with beads, the winged kind and apparently I'm not the only one intrigued by these winged beauties. I have an order for four more dragonflies this week. All for the Dana that received the dragonfly by mistake, for her daughters/granddaughters in memory of her mother. What an honor! I feel the pressure tho, to make them perfectly.. I made the first one without a hitch

So I'm hoping they all will be this easy, maybe starting to get into a groove with them, little easier each time. I'm always excited to get them finished and take them out into the sun to see them sparkle. I'll post each one here as I get them created so whoever reads can see that I really am obsessed with bugs! Just kidding, I'm not, Really! I like to make people happy, and i think this beauty should do the trick. ﻿It's been a really stressful week, with dragonflies to make and no crystals the right size or color. The flowers for my daughter's wedding still not made, only a few petals poke out of the box of supplies. I hope I can even put those petals together when i do get them all made. This is my first experience with French beaded flowers. I will say WHOA! That is a lotta seed beads! ﻿ I bet I have bought at least 600 grams or more in total, not to mention the wire and the stem wires and beads for sprays. This has turned into a huge project, one little wedding bouquet. Which has to be beautiful because it's for my daughter, who, by the way, isn't too happy with me right now.... I can't please everybody all the time,and this time I really didn't have any choice. I was hired to do a make-ready for a prominent man of the community. (A make-ready is a where you clean a house after someone's moved out to make it ready for the new owner..for those of you who didn't know.) He used to be the mayor here and you really don't want to get a bad rap with somebody like that. It's bad for business to put a customer off anyway, any customer, but especially not somebody that influential. It paid a good price too and I needed the money. I told her several times, over several days, that I had to do this job. She had been planning to go to a conference with my mom this week and expected me to keep the girls. She had already paid for it in advance, which I totally understood but she wasn't hearing me when I told her I couldn't keep putting this job off. I put it of three days, she still didn't make any other arrangements. I finally had to put my foot down and refuse to keep them so I could do the job. Now I'm in the doghouse with her, but I did give her fair warning, she just didn't take me seriously, I guess.. Nobody ever does in my family because I'm always talking so much I think they've learned to tune me out :) I feel really bad but I couldn't go against the will of my Dad, there's just no telling Tom no, not for me, they can do it, but for some reason, I cannot. And I understood his reason anyway, this was a very important customer. Then Mom got sick and neither one of them could go. Then I got sick and then- Tom got sick! OMG! Really? So sick and stressed is the story for me today. I would never intentionally do something to hurt my daughter, Now that I am sober, I sometimes feel overwhelmed with the anxiety of trying to make it all right and keep everybody happy. "just ain't gonna happen.." as my sister would say. Maybe she will forgive me, maybe she won't. But I'll not let that stop me from making her flowers perfect! The house took me two days to finish, it was a HUGE house, you could fit four or five of my house inside it. It wasn't dirty, but I still had to go through the motions, I still had to wipe everything down- cabinets, drawers, baseboards.. ceiling fans, toilets, sinks, tubs, showers. I'm sick too, so maybe not as speedy as I should have been. Or maybe I'm just getting old, I am pushing 40 here, losing my touch? Maybe, but I did get it done, nonetheless. And I got paid so I can buy more friggin seed beads! Just kidding, I think I have enough now, but just in case I run out, I'll have some cash in stash. Luckily for the dragonflies too, because i didn't have any crystals the right size or colors she wanted. I will be more careful to keep sizes other than 4mm in stock from now on.I was so stressed out I forgot to pay my phone bill and it was turned off last night. ( I wondered why it wasn't ringing.. or nobody had texted..) So there went another $40, yea, I am lucky that job came along, because I don't have much of an income right now. And I don't expect to get rich selling dragonflies, but you never know.. I do plan on entering a beading contest in Feburary, I'll post more about that when I get everything that's on my plate now finished up.Let's see, #1 Dragonflies, three more of them. #2 Jesi's wedding bouquet flowers. #3 Mom's birthday necklace, which was in July, and will now be her Christmas present because just can't seem to find time! #4 Beading Contest, and somewhere in between all of that another necklace for Ma, this one with bead embroidery, something else I've never done before. I will post about all of it from time to time as well as other going's on in my crazy life! So check back to see what bug I'm obsessed with next! Ha Ha! Or who's mad at Andrea this week, that would be a good one. You guys will see how crazy I am just trying to keep the peace! Just trying to keep the peace with my son with Asperger's isn't enough, ya know?Look for dragonflies to be buzzing in the next few daysOk I'm going to stop talking nowreallyMy family knows it's not true, and so will you! Good nite!

Well she has been here for a nearly a month now. I am guessing she is a she as she is quite large and the males of this species apparently don't survive long due to be eaten by the female during mating. Imagine that..? "Hey buddy i told you not to touch me there!" Chomp! She bites his head off and eats him. Ah, to be a male mantis, what a discerning choice to make... I have had the priveledge of watching her hunt which she does is in the wee hours of the morning, (probably because the cats are all asleep somewhere.) Someone suggested I put her outside a few days ago, why in the world would I wanna do that? She has PLENTY to eat here, she is fairly safe from predators staying high up on the ceiling most of the time, coming down only at night after the humans and cats have left the room. She really has it made. In all the houses I have lived in this is the 'buggiest'. Just now she caught a small mothlike creature for breakfast. How interesting to watch how slow they move until prey is within their grasp. And contrary to my Mom's belief they do change color to blend in with their surroundings because she developed spots on her back as she slowly rocked her way up the curtain to catch the little moth. She watches me too I think, with 5 eyes I'm sure she can see what goes on here quite well. Now she is cleaning those deadly pinchers and probably preparing to find a good hiding spot for the rest of the day. It's interesting to have her here, especially when she surprises me by being somewhere I didn't expect, like perched atop my wrap when I reached to put it on. "Oh, hello, I really wasnt that cold, really." But she slowly rocked away from it as if to say, "Here, I'll move, just trying to get a better angle on that flourescent light ya got there." It amazes me she has survived my cats, she must be quite smart for a bug her size. I read that they can live up to 14 months in captivity, I really wouldn't consider my house 'captivity' as she made her way in here of her own free will and stays of her own free will, but without natural predators she could possibly live a long time in here. I have bugs of all sorts for her to hunt and eat. We'll see how long she survives my jungle, and hope she eliminates some pesky flies, beetles, moths and maybe even some scorpians and spiders.

I swear sometimes that I have the weirdest luck on earth. The strangest things are always happening to me, ironic things that don't happen to other people ona regular basis. Out of all the things I've made, my dragonflies have been the most popular. Maybe i should change my name to The Dragonfly Lady. I was nicknamed Firefly as a teen, but nobody really calls me that anymore. So heads up, I may change my name, you never can tell about me. I am Gemini. I bore easily..The latest weird occurrence in my life was when I made a Dragonfly for a lady who wanted it sent to her daughter as a 'just because' gift. I carefully crafted it, paying attention to every detail. It was perfect, I asked my Mom to print the shipping label for me. It took a couple of days to get it from her as she lives out in the country and, although my Dad makes several trips to town a day, it just didn't make onto the dash to be delivered to me as Mom kept forgetting about it. Finally, I retrieved it from the dash and hurried to package and ship the dragonfly. Shew! Thank goodness, it's on it's way! A few days later I received a message on ebay from another customer I had sold a dragonfly to months ago.. She was so excited, "It's just gorgeous!" she says, 'I would like to keep it, I will pay you for it." Now what in the world is going on here? I sold the dragonfly on Etsy and printed a shipping label to Ohio, right? So why is it in Illinois? Hmm.. I investigated further. Both ladies were named Dana, but the last name was different, the states were different. Could it be possible she used her maiden named and had moved? (maybe she got a divorce?) I asked her about her mother's name, and told her that if that was her mother than it was gift from her. She replied that her mother had died this past June, she wished it was a gift from her. She told me that she'd like to think the mix-up was 'meant to be' and could she please keep the dragonfly. I felt absolutely awful! What could I do? I arranged for her to pay me thru PayPal and let her keep the dragonfly. But what was I to tell my Etsy buyer? I was so embarrassed and confused. Oh hey, By the way, that dragonfly you ordered for your daughter, well i sent it to the wrong person and she was intent on keeping it so I let her have it. How awful! I did the only thing I knew to do, I told the truth, which is all I really know how to do, I'm a terrible liar. ﻿﻿I promised I'd make another dragonfly for her daughter. It took forever to get it mailed again, with getting the shipping label from my Mom's computer to me. I finally had to ask my daughter to print it and I felt so bad about the whole thing I made another dragonfly and sent it along too as a free gift. It took all day to make the dragonfly, me being such a perfectionist. So in a day or so somebody will receive two very lovely dragonflies and hopefully that will bring a smile to her face and brighten her day a little Let's just hope that, it goes to the right Dana this time and there's not some other unbelievable occerrance! The lesson learned from all of this? BUY A PRINTER!!

I Am Andrea Diane Epperson

I am a Mom, a Daughter, MeMe (Grandmother, but don't call me one), a friend, cat lover, jewelry maker, & household goods packer. I am Mom to a married 20 year old Daughter, Jesi Winter who is Mom to 2 precious little girls, Lilica 2 years, and Jasmine 6 months. I am also a Mom to a 6 year old little boy, Andrew James. Andrew has a form of autism called Aspergers syndrome characterized by super-sensitivity to his environment and an inability to tolerate loud noises or lots of noise and crowds. Its sort of like living with a ticking time bomb, never knowing what will set him off; A smell, taste, a toy 'misbehaving'. All of the events of his day must be calculated carefully as he cannot cope with change the way another child might. He has improved greatly, for instance he was very terrified of the vacuum cleaner and now he volunteers to vacuum messes all the time. Small steps like this are huge milestones in Andrew's development and adjustment to daily life. Although his form of Autism is especially difficult to handle because of the sheer raw nerves and the meltdowns are simply awful, the up side is he loves unconditionally and is completely genuine. There are no facades for him, no little white lies, because he is incapable of lying. He is a handful, to say the least, but a pure joy to know and love.